I don't know that it's odd that RPG players are involved in martial arts, as they role playing could spark a curiosity about it. And people with similar interests do tend to congregate together. That being said, I have found that the interest in martial arts is only slightly higher than the general population. Most of the role players I know are not involved in martial arts in any manner.

And as for the reality based systems, it's nearly impossible to simulate it exactly. We do what we can, but the only true experience is to actually fight. Even such simulations as tournaments, sparring, even paintball, etc. are not the same but only a rough simulation. On several occasions I have lost tournament boughts for using practical self defense style martial arts, then afterwards had several instructors and often the guy I was fighting against ask me to show them the moves that I did, because they knew that in a "real" fight they would have been creamed. I always spar at the black belt level (kind of have to).

I'm not saying that it's odd that the overlap exists, but that the overlap hasn't produced any particularly useful abstraction of physical combat. I mean the state-of-the-art hasn't progressed much since, say, the early 80's at best, despite the fact that a lot of thought has been applied to it.

True. It hasn't developed much. I think it's because of how cumbersome such a system would be. I have an idea on how to do it; however, it would take a computer to do it with, which defeats part of the concept of table top role playing. Although it could be a lot of fun! I just need a programmer to work with... Not this year. Maybe later in 2012. :-) It'd certainly be a fun experiment!

I took a stab at simulating the combat experience here. No success, but some interesting ideas. I think the accounting of "what you'd have to model in order to produce an authentic combat experience" is rather good.

A few thoughts on your last response, Johanus:

1) Focusing on initial reaction/analysis would be very cool, but I don't think announcement order accomplishes that by itself. I think it falls a bit short on choice, drama, and relevance.

Relevance: if we're fighting, and you have to announce first, so now I know what you're going to do, how can I take advantage of that knowledge? If this was in your rules, I missed it.

Choice: if I can take advantage of knowing your move, do I have multiple options to choose between in response, with no single obvious right answer?

Drama: if I know your move and can use the move that counters it (or whatever), then the initial reaction/analysis is simply reducible to our character stats, with no suspense and uncertainty. "Who will suss out their opponent first, misdirect, catch off balance, or otherwise choose the right moment to strike?" That's what I'd want to be asking, and building up anticipation to resolve the answer! (And, once resolved, I'd want the answer to be a big deal in terms of determining the fight's outcome.)

2) If you want to add/resolve/produce more details without adding more mechanical operations (e.g. series of die rolls), you could try employing a single resolution method that can be mined for multiple types of info. For example, if you roll 6d6, you can look for highest die, largest matching set (4 2s or whatever), number of pairs, highest pair, highest or lowest non-paired die, longest sequence (2,3,4,etc.), and more, and assign a different relevance to each of those measures. So, you could cover hit/miss, location, damage, position, armor soak, and more with fewer rolls and look-up tables than otherwise.

3) Another example of how you can handle multiple variables: Burning Wheel combat uses a grid, showing how each of the 7 or so moves matches up against every other move. Combatants pick moves in secret and then simultaneously reveal. If I chose "feint" and you chose "push", we look up the result and see what happens to both of us. The chart factors in attempts like evasion, tackling, disarms, and various things that might play to a given character's skill set.

I've read your combat simulation discussion. It was certainly intriguing! A lot of good points. One thing I've done as a GM is to note the players' respective armour and how much damage they can take and keep notes on it myself, without telling them the actual numbers. With some groups I've even gone so far as to roll the damage myself for their attacks (that's a sticky one that the players may or may not complain about) so that they don't know exactly the numbers. It makes the simulation of combat more realistic for them and I have gotten some really good reviews on this. Of course it's all a matter of what kind of players you have, too. Some people just can't handle that!

Most of my players have been happy to pass the bulk of the calculations onto the GM as long as it's demonstrated to them what the inputs are. So if I as GM calculate that your armor takes the hit, then: